Wednesday - mid morning

I just decided not to get up early today. Haven't done that in a while. I almost feel like just going back to bed for a few hours.  Why not? No one is home, even Taylor is gone, she appears to be at the new parents house. They  have been begging her to come over repeatedly to feed the baby and help it go to sleep - so they can get some sleep.

They were informed many times over by several different people that sleep would become a thing of the past in these first months of the baby's life.  One of them even has 3 months off for maternity leave.  But no matter, they are not used to having to be awake basically all night long.  I get it, it sucks. Having the baby is great but dealing with the baby an entirely different story. Perhaps they can get a taste of what Taylor has been through for all of this time.  

I have understood that there are many professors in colleges around the country today that are basically brainwashing their students into this progressive type of thinking that basically tells them to hate America as it currently is and that it needs transformed into some Socialist/Communist type of hellish nightmare where the government dictates the lives of every citizen. I'm sure they don't put it that way, but I could make it even worse considering the history.  

What I didn't know until this Israeli war is the hatred they have been teaching to include anti-Semitism.  Really, that took me by surprise, that giant gatherings of students around the country at these elite universities are chanting against Israel and also anyone here, in the U.S., that stands up for them and against the terrorist group known as Hamas.  If this was happening in my town, I would be there. To do what? Talk to these people. Find out what is driving their hatred.  How do you hate people you don't know and have mostly if nothing but peaceful intentions? Do you see Israel trying to take over the world?  

Yet, nations and people have hated the Jews since before the time of Christ.  I don't understand it, but I can say, at least in my world view and what I have learned from the bible which I firmly believe IS the Word of God, that you are taking sides against the Creator God in taking a stance against Israel and the Jewish people.  I know many of these people are atheists. That is the other thing that is bewildering. That we have colleges full of students that are mostly atheist, taught to believe there is no God and even mock anyone that has such beliefs.  This is where the breeding grounds for totalitarianism and dictatorships start, with young people who have no clue what they are talking about believing things that only people in power or wanting to be in power would proffer to them as absolute truth.  

Are we on the brink of a world war?  Only God knows that, perhaps the evil behind the people running these evil nations such as Russia and China, North Korea, anyone with nukes or raw hatred enough to drive them into action will know that.  Is this nation ready for war?  I don't know, if you take the analysis of "experts", we are not recruiting enough people and our war chests are emptying out, handing it over to the Ukraine and apparently now we are going to ship munitions to Israel.  I can agree with giving it to Israel, the Ukraine? Not so much.

The peace that passes all understanding comes from God and God alone.  You can get filled with fear about world events or you can have that inner peace God gives you.  I do take certain steps to make sure our mouths are fed regardless of what happens, I don't subscribe that to fear but to preparedness.  Why take chances with your food supply? It isn't just wars that can deplete grocery store shelves in just a few hours. Look at what happened with Covid.  A bad weather event can knock out the power for days or weeks or bad weather can stop trucks from being able to deliver to the stores. 

We went through a week of no power and spent almost $500 on fuel to keep generators running.  Was it worth it? In my mind, yes. It was summer time and it was HOT.  We used some of the power to run window AC units and the rest to run freezers, refrigerator, lights, power electronics, etc.  Could we sustain that for months? No.  I don't have the wherewithal to be buying that much fuel for that long. The other folks here also pitched in and bought fuel during that time. It was expensive but it would have cost that much or more to stay at a hotel, unless you are talking one of these dumpy hotels. But, they didn't have power either.  Holiday Inn, Marriott, all of the big name brands were down as well. 

Generac? Good idea, but expensive, not in my budget.  Runs on natural gas which keeps pumping regardless.  They do have compression stations for natural gas, I've seen one on the way to Gurdon.  I don't know if that's necessary everywhere or what.  I do know it's under plenty of pressure just coming out of the ground. I have one of those operations on my property.  I'm only saying this because of course, a compression station uses power, the one I saw had giant backup generators.  

Just my musings today as I watch this Israeli offensive take place and wondering if Iran is going to intervene beyond their use of proxies, such as Hamas, and bring in the IRGC or somehow escalate this to the entire region.  

I will head to Ollie's soon and see if they have a deal on space heaters.  They have them listed online. Otherwise I'll just have to go to Walmart.  

And the dreaded act of collecting money. It's just a chore.  People may or may not want to pay, but I have to go chase them down.  I have at least 3, I think 4 actually, payments due.  Well, that and if the welders stayed - they were there yesterday - there should be a check in the mailbox for them today.  That payment alone would almost pay for the electric bill due on the 10th.  

I didn't get paid last night so I "assume" I will get a direct deposit tonight.  If I don't, well, there will be a phone call being made tomorrow.  They haven't screwed me over yet on pay, just hope that trend continues.  

And we will continue to check on the rye grass seed. There is grass popping up all over the place, but that was happening before I spread the seed out.  The ideal time to plant, at least one website says, it between mid August and the end of September. Great, I got it down before the end of September, let's get with it now.  But, it says 7 - 10 days to germinate, they all say that, so I have a bit of waiting to go.  

There are plenty of things I need to get done over there.  Nothing urgent.  My 4 wheeler won't start - it doesn't like to in the cold weather since that guy "fixed" it, I suspect a small shot of ether will get it going. I didn't have time the other day when it was raining and I was dragging a heavy board from 200 feet away to drop the trailer.  I suspect I will hear about that from the manager considering the desk clerk's reaction when I told her I didn't bring the trailer with me.  She wanted me to take it to a washout up there.  Very glad I didn't have to - it's 45 minutes each way, the wrong way.  I don't know why they'd care one way or the other where I leave a trailer where I've been leaving it.  It is their property, of course, but it's under my care.  They know where it's parked, the truck shows up on their GPS.  They know about my RV park, they know everything, I told them up front. 

Oh, well the 4 wheeler would simply be used to trim back some brush along the driveway and go back into the trails and cut that rotten tree into pieces.  I have potholes forming on the driveway as well.  That will be a chore because I'll have to hook up the trailer, shovel dirt onto it and then take it to the areas needing dirt and shovel it in.  It really needs gravel mixed in with it.  I don't really have the money to be buying a $750 truckload of gravel right now.  I wonder if they'd just sell me a bit of it dumped onto my trailer?  It would still cost.  

I guess in terms of priority, those potholes take the cake.  Physical labor of which I definitively do not feel like engaging in today.  I have this mind right now of just sitting here and doing nothing.  Of course, that doesn't pay the bills or keep guests happy.....

So, get dressed, get moving, get stuff done. It's like this pretty much every day, whether a full plate the entire day or just half a day, I am busy most days now with this job.  I apparently will get a reprieve this week beyond the truck swap and the trailer drop, I dunno.  If I collect what I think I will be collecting from tenants, no worries.  I have to get trained at Ennis anyway, they were talking about me going there 2 days ago, the manager wasn't in. 

I informed them that the manager declared I needed training at that particular plant and I agreed with that.  Plants have different rules, you need to understand the nuances of what they want before you go in there.  If we are slow, the man can come on his way to Ennis to pick me up, take me there, show me the ropes, bring me back home.  Ennis is 2-1/2 hours, you'd expect a 7 hour give or take day out of it.  If the GPS says 2-1/2 hours, I give it 3.  Make that an 8 hour day, for offloading can take any varying amount of time.  They say this stuff is less dense and offloads faster, if that is true, you can drain an entire tanker load in 45 minutes.  But you still have to weigh in and out, which takes time and whatever else they make you do there.  

Whatever, I'm ready to get the training over with.  If they want to do it this week, great, give me the assignment and lets go.  

Well, I guess I'll get my @$$ in gear and get out of here.

G'day